"Where is he?"

"There!"

In a pause of breathless silence--with the eyes of every person in the
room eagerly fastened on him--the surgeon lifted his hand and pointed to
Geoffrey Delamayn.


CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

TOUCHING IT.

As soon as the general stupefaction was allayed, the general incredulity
asserted itself as a matter of course.

The man who first declared that "seeing" was "believing" laid his finger
(whether he knew it himself or not) on one of the fundamental follies
of humanity. The easiest of all evidence to receive is the evidence
that requires no other judgment to decide on it than the judgment of
the eye--and it will be, on that account, the evidence which humanity is
most ready to credit, as long as humanity lasts. The eyes of every
body looked at Geoffrey; and the judgment of every body decided, on
the evidence there visible, that the surgeon must be wrong. Lady Lundie
herself (disturbed over her dinner invitations) led the general protest.
"Mr. Delamayn in broken health!" she exclaimed, appealing to the better
sense of her eminent medical guest. "Really, now, you can't expect us to
believe that!"